


I Had No Being But in Thee

by cosmicallylame



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gratuitous Swearing, Hogwarts Fifth Year, Lucius Malfoy Being an Asshole, M/M, Narcissa Malfoy Being a Badass, Spell Failure, and beyond, clever!draco, dragging draco malfoy kicking and screaming through character development, just indecent amounts of it really, magical aphrodisiac, magical bonding, while still loving his son
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-05-16 04:56:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19311067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicallylame/pseuds/cosmicallylame
Summary: During the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, Draco Malfoy has a stroke of complete, bordering-on-suicidal idiocy.At least, that’s whatmusthave happened. It’s the only explanation Draco can come up with.Why else would he launch himself directly into the path of intense, deadly spellfire to save Potter’s scrawny arse?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd. any and all mistakes are my own! title is taken from Edgar Allan Poe's epic, _Tamerlane_.

Suffocating. Draco is suffocating. 

The crushing darkness is everywhere, all around him; his lungs are collapsing, he’s sure—

And then it’s over. He can breathe again, see again, his father a steady presence beside him. Fuck, Draco hates Apparition.

They stand in a room with ceilings high as a cathedral and full of nothing but towering shelves lined with small, dusty, glass orbs. They glimmer dully in the light issuing from candle brackets set at intervals along the shelves, flames burning a ghostly blue. This is the Department of Mysteries—this is the Prophecy Hall. 

He’s meant to watch, stay out of sight, and wait for his signal like a good little Death Eater. And, well, he doesn’t have a _deathwish_ , does he? Prompted by a meaningful, silent look from his father that—under the perfect pureblood mask Draco knows so well—is laced with anxiety, Draco quickly ducks behind a nearby tower of prophecies. 

The two Malfoys do not have to wait long, however, before the figures of Potter, two Weasleys, Granger, Lovegood, and Longbottom come blundering into view. 

“He should be near here,” Potter is saying, talking about Black, his godfather. “Anywhere here…really close…” He is met with echoing, dusty silence. His friends are looking at him with varying expressions of pity and unease. 

“He might be…” Potter whispers hoarsely, briefly exiting Draco’s line of sight, presumably to check the alley next door. 

“Harry?” says Granger. 

“What?” Potter snarls. 

“I…I don’t think Sirius is here.” Spectacular deduction. Ten points to Gryffindor. 

Then Weasley notices The Prophecy with Potter and the Dark Lord’s name on it. The thing they’re all here for. Of course, the predictable idiots have no idea why it’s there or what to do with it. They spend a few minutes dithering on about what it is and whether Potter should touch it. It’s almost pitiful, how clueless they are. Honestly, had no one ever thought to tell the bloody Boy Who Lived why his parents were dead? Draco is sure he’d want to know if there was a prophecy floating about here with _his_ name on it. 

He watches as his father begins to creep dramatically out from the shadows, expression predatory. Potter closes his fingers around the dusty ball’s surface as the others move to close around him and stare at it. 

The six of them start as Lucius’ voice drawls from right behind them, “Very good Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me.”

Draco feels his forearm prickle as the black shapes of Death Eaters emerge out of thin air all around them, blocking Potter and his friends’ way left and right; eyes glint through slits in hoods, and a dozen lit wand tips are pointing directly at their hearts. 

“To me, Potter,” his father repeats, holding his hand out palm-up. 

Draco sees each of their faces pale, feels each of their stomachs drop as the six of them realize they are trapped and outnumbered two to one. He thinks he might feel a sense of victory though he finds he cannot glean amusement in the students’ growing terror as his relatives do. 

“ _To me_ ,” his father says yet again. 

“Where’s Sirius?” Potter says. 

Several of the Death Eaters laugh, Draco’s Aunt Bellatrix being the loudest among them. Her harsh voice calls out triumphantly, “The Dark Lord always knows!” They’d all known the Dark Lord’s plan would work, of course. His abilities as a Legilimens are unparalleled. 

“Always,” echoes his father softly. “Now, give me the prophecy, boy.”

“I want to know where Sirius is!” Potter shouts. 

_“I want to know where Sirius is!”_ mimics Aunt Bella. She and the rest of the Death Eaters had closed in so that they were mere feet away from Potter and the others. 

“You’ve got him,” says Potter. “He’s here. I know he his.” Even Draco can hear the dread in the other boy’s voice. 

_“The little baby woke up fwightened and fort what it dweamed was twoo,” _says Aunt Bella in a mock-baby voice. Potter mutters something to Weasley aside from him.__

Aunt Bella lets out a raucous scream of laughter. “You hear him? _You hear him?_ Giving orders to the other children as though he thinks of fighting us!”

“Oh, you don’t know Potter as I do, Bellatrix,” his father says softly. “He has a great weakness for heroics; the Dark Lord understands this about him. _Now give me the prophecy, Potter._ ”

“I know Sirius is here. I know you’ve got him,” says Potter, visibly fighting panic, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

__“It’s time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter,” says his father. “Now give me the Prophecy, or we start using wands.”_ _

“Go on, then,” says Potter, raising his wand to chest height. _Stupid,_ Draco thinks with an alarming flash of something in his gut. The five wands of Weasley, Granger, Longbottom, the Weaslette, and Lovegood rise on either side of Potter.

His father does not strike.

__“Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt,” his father says coolly._ _

__Now it’s Potter’s turn to laugh._ _

__“Yeah, right!” he says. “I give you this—prophecy, is it? And you’ll just let us skip off home, will you?”_ _

The words are hardly out of his mouth before Aunt Bella shrieks, “ _Accio proph—_ ” 

But Potter seems to be just ready for her. He shouts, “ _Protego!_ ” before she finishes her spell, and though Draco sees the glass sphere slip to the tips of Potter’s shaking fingers, he manages to cling on to it.

__“Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter,” says Aunt Bella. “Very well then—”_ _

__“I told you, no!” His father roars at her. “If you smash it…”_ _

__Aunt Bella steps forward and pulls off her hood. Draco hadn’t seen her since she’d broken out of Azkaban, and it’s just as well, Draco thinks. He’s always found her a bit terrifying. The wizard prison had hollowed her face, making it gaunt and skull-like, but now it is alive with a feverish, fanatical glow._ _

__“You need more persuasion?” She says, her breast heaving. “Very well—take the smallest one,” she orders Jugson and Macnair standing beside her. “Let him watch while we torture the little girl. I’ll do it.”_ _

__As one, Potter and his friends close in around the Weasley girl. “You’ll have to smash this if you want to attack any of us,” he tells Aunt Bella. “I don’t think your boss will be too pleased if you come back without it, will he?”_ _

__She does not move; she merely stares at him._ _

__“So,” says Potter, his stupid Gryffindor bravery veiling the words with a casual air. Draco notices his eyes flicking from Death Eater to Death Eater, looking for a way out. “what kind of prophecy are we talking about, anyway? How come Voldemort wants it?”_ _

__Draco winces and quickly stifles a hiss at the mention of the Dark Lord._ _

__“You dare speak his name?” whispers Aunt Bella._ _

__“Yeah,” says Potter. “Yeah, I’ve got no problem saying Vol—"_ _

__“Shut your mouth!” Aunt Bella shrieks. “You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your half-blood’s tongue, you dare—”_ _

__“Did you know he’s a half-blood too?” Potter says, the reckless fool. Bastard has no sense of self preservation. “Voldemort? Yeah, his mother was a witch, but his dad was a Muggle. Or has he been telling you lot he’s pureblood?”_ _

“ _STUPEF—“_

__“NO!”_ _

__A jet of red light shoots from the end of Aunt Bella’s wand, but his father deflects it. His spell causes hers to hit the shelf a foot to the left from Potter and several of the glass orbs there shatter upon the impact._ _

__Two figures, pearly white as ghosts, fluid as smoke, unfurl themselves from the fragments of broken glass on the floor and each begins to speak. Their voices vie with each other, so that only fragments of what they were saying can be heard over the shouts of Draco’s relatives._ _

_”…and none will come after…”_ says the figure of a young woman.

__“Do not attack! We need the prophecy!”_ _

“He dared – he dares—” shrieks Aunt Bella incoherently. “—He stands there— _filthy_ half-blood—”

 _”…at the Solstice will come a new…”_ says the figure of an old, bearded man.

__“Wait until we’ve got the prophecy!” shouts his father._ _

__The two figures that had burst from the shattered spheres melt into thin air. Nothing remains of them or their erstwhile homes but fragments of glass on the floor._ _

__Draco is growing more wary by the second. He can’t shake the feeling something terrible is about to happen, and he isn’t too excited about the prospect of hiding behind this shelf and waiting around for it. He tightens his grip on the wood and tries to ready his body for immediate action._ _

__Potter continues to play for time while Lucius explains that the only people who can retrieve a prophecy from the Department of Mysteries are those about whom it is made. Lucius decidedly does not mention that the Dark Lord only discovered this after several failed attempts using others to steal it for him._ _

__Lucius is in the middle of saying, “Very good, Potter, but the Dark Lord knows you are not—” when Potter starts shouting._ _

__“Now!”_ _

Five different voices bellow “ _REDUCTO!_ ”. Five curses fly in five different directions and the shelves opposite them explode as they hit. The towering structures sway as a hundred glass spheres burst apart; pearly white figures unfurl into the air and float there, their voices echoing from who knows what long-dead past amid the torrent of crashing glass and splintered wood now raining down upon the floor. The shelves sway precariously and more glass spheres begin to pour from above. Like dominoes, one after the other, with a slow, sickening creaking sound, the hundred-pound shelves begin toppling to the floor. Draco realizes with dawning horror—he’s about to be fucking crushed.

At the same time Potter yells, “RUN!” to his companions, Lucius blindly turns in the direction of his son and says, “Draco, _go._ ”

__As if he needs to be told twice._ _

They’re all yelling, there are cries of pain, thunderous crashes as the shelves collapse upon themselves, creepily echoing fragments of the Seers unleashed from their glass homes. With one arm over his head as chunks of shelf and shards of glass rain down upon him and one arm holding his wand out in front of him, Draco ducks and zigzags as he runs, scrambling to avoid the falling towers. Getting buried alive is _not_ the next item on his weekly agenda.

__At last, Draco finds the way clear ahead and sees Avery and Dolohov sprint past him, arms over their heads. Something heavy strikes him on the side of the face but he merely ducks his head and continues onward. He’s at the end of row ninety-seven. He turns right and begins to sprint in earnest. He has to get out of here. He thinks he might finally be making some headway—_ _

__—when he collides headlong with Ginny fucking Weasley. Draco barrels into her, unable to control his momentum; she cracks her forehead against his sternum. That’ll bruise. They both fall to the floor in a graceless tangle of limbs, groaning. Draco moves to extricate himself from their strange and uncomfortable embrace when, fast as lightning, the Weasley girl kicks him hard in the ribs and he stumbles away, fighting to regain some semblance of balance._ _

“ _Expelliarmus!_ ”

__His wand flies from his vice-like grip and behind him, toward in the crumbling mass of broken prophecies. He turns around frantically just in time to watch his wand disappear into the wreckage. He can’t go back for it._ _

__Feeling positively mutinous, he wrenches himself off the ground and glares. “You little bitch—” he starts, but all he gets is a glimpse of her god-awful red hair and the tail of her school robes before she whips around the corner. Fuck._ _

Nothing to be done for it now. Draco’s shit at wandless magic, and if he doesn’t start moving _right the fuck now_ , he’s going to be trapped.

__He continues running along the main corridor, his father nowhere in sight. He sees a thin shaft of light straight ahead: the door through which Potter and his friends must have entered was flung wide open. Draco pelts through the doorway and sees the glittering light of the Time Jar where a tiny egg seems to be hatching and unhatching (very fascinating magical artifact, that is. Draco briefly laments the fact that he’s currently running for his life and can’t spare a moment to admire it). He hurtles over yet another threshold into the entrance of the whole Department: a large, cold, circular room. And oh shit._ _

__The heaving backs of Potter, Granger, and Longbottom are but a few feet in front of him. “Where—where are the others?” Potter is saying—gasping, more like._ _

__“They must have gone the wrong way!” whispers Granger, terror in her paling face._ _

__Soundlessly, Mulciber and Rookwood Apparate on the other side of the circular room, at Draco’s twelve o’clock. They smirk at him evilly and train their wands on Potter just before the telltale shimmer of the air around them Draco knows to be the mark of a Disillusionment Charm engulfs the pair, hiding them from view._ _

He mentally begs Potter or one of his friends to notice—but they don’t. He can’t very well expose himself. Shit. Fuck. Can he? They’re too engrossed in their own conversation, too exhausted from fighting for their lives, and everything is happening in slow motion, and he doesn’t have his fucking wand, and then blue and dark purple jets of light are surging from Mulciber and Rookwood’s wands, headed straight for Potter’s heart, and he doesn’t recognize these spells, doesn’t know what they do, and he doesn’t want anyone to die, _and he doesn’t have his fucking wand—_

__To his absolute horror, Draco’s feet begin to move of their own accord. What the fuck is he doing?_ _

__Suddenly he’s leaping past Longbottom and Granger directly in front of Potter, hands outstretched, pushing at the other boy’s chest, desperately hoping... hoping what, exactly? That he can get them both out of the way of Certain Fucking Death?_ _

Draco feels the burn of spellfire, grips tight onto Potter’s shirt. He thinks, _Merlin, if we both live through this, you owe me a goddamn wand, Potter_. He sees white.

__And then he sees nothing at all._ _


	2. Chapter Two

Harry’s getting really sick of waking up in hospitals. 

He sits up in his bed slowly--courtesy of the fact that he feels like he’s just been hit by a train--and looks around. Oak-panelled walls, painted portraits, wizards in lime-green robes bustling about…Ah. Must be St. Mungo’s. Right then. 

_“Urrrghh…”_

Harry hears someone groaning to his right, along with the sound of creaking bedsprings. He looks over to see Draco Malfoy in the bed next to his, looking about as rejuvenated as Harry feels. 

“Salazar’s balls… _Malfoy?_ What are _you_ doing here?”

Malfoy starts, inhaling sharply, and turns to Harry with a reflexive glare. Harry’s gut tightens with a sudden flash of panic. 

“Where are Ron and Hermione?”

Malfoy looks taken aback. “How the bloody fuck should I know?”

“Well…well, you were there, weren’t you? Back at the…Department of Mysteries…” Harry’s voice fades with every word, becoming barely a whisper before he cuts himself off. Oh. Oh, shit, it’s all coming back to him now. The vision of Sirius, the prophecy, the Death Eaters, the mad dash to the circular room, Malfoy barreling into him, the blinding light of spellfire. Feeling hot, like he was burning from the inside out. 

Malfoy must see something in his face, because he mutters, _“Fuck,”_ like a man defeated, hands coming up to tangle in his white-blond hair. Without looking at him, he mutters, “Yes, Potter. You bloody well know I was there. But I haven’t got a clue where your friends are.”

For better or worse, Harry is prevented from responding by a witch in green Healer robes opening the door, her blond hair in a tight bun. 

“Good morning, my name is Healer Bardot, I’ll be checking up on your magical signatures as well as any minor physical injuries you may have sustained.” She says this all in a brief and clinical fashion, wasting no time and walking briskly to Malfoy’s bed. 

Harry watches her tend to Malfoy’s injuries. She waves her wand in a series of complicated motions over him for a minute or so. Seemingly satisfied, she nods and begins to relieve the boy of his shirt without preamble, making quick work of the buttons to reveal a bandaged, pale torso underneath. Suddenly uncomfortable, Harry looks away and instead becomes quite immersed in examining the folds of his bedsheets. 

Glasses. Where are his glasses? 

It takes about three seconds for him to locate them, placed thoughtfully on the bedside table, looking very clean and very recently in contact with a _Reparo_. Harry feels a sudden onslaught of affection and is instantly reminded of Hermione. 

The smarmy git’s been uncharacteristically silent since the Healer witch had come in and started fussing over his wounds. Harry mentally scoffs. Probably enjoying all the attention. He chances a look over to the other boy’s bed and is quite thankful to find him fully clothed, prodding his own ribs and looking at Healer Bardot with an expression of bemusement. 

The detached, medical expression on her face seems to crack for a moment before Bardot allows herself a small smile, manicured eyebrows quirking slightly upwards. “Yes, you had quite some nasty contusions on your ribs and sternum, Mr. Malfoy, but nothing a few diagnostic spells and some Anti-Bruising Salve can’t fix. Though I should discourage you from any further strenuous activity in the next 12 hours.”

Malfoy blinks and seems to remember himself, his face slipping into a perfect well-practiced expression of general disdain, save for a smudge of pink high on his cheeks. Harry finds it immensely aggravating. “Thank you. You may charge any outstanding medical bills to the Gringotts account in my father’s name.”

Healer Bardot’s smile falls imperceptibly. “Of course.”

Harry has made a valiant effort thus far to restrain himself from bombarding the nice Healer lady with his myriad questions, but he can’t take it anymore. From his peripheral vision, he sees Malfoy roll his eyes as Harry begins to speak, but he can’t be arsed to acknowledge it. 

“Excuse me, Mrs.—er, Miss, Healer Bardot, ma’am? Do you—do you know if there’s been any visitors? To this ward? Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Ginny, Neville, Luna, they’re my friends, you see, and if you could just tell me whether they’re okay—”

“Mr. Potter, I can assure you each of your friends’ preliminary health concerns have been addressed. Miss Lovegood, Mr. Longbottom, and Miss Weasley were discharged last night. They are free to drop in at any time during visiting hours, which should start,”—she checks her watch— “in twenty minutes. Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley are in the ward down the hall receiving treatment. Yes, _they are fine_ ,” she adds pointedly at Harry’s interruption. “Now, do you have any further questions, or are you going to let me do my job?” 

Malfoy snickers from the other side of the room. 

Harry does, actually, but he supposes he can wait to ask somebody else. 

She triages him with practiced efficiency, asks him a few questions about his areas of pain, and, evidently, finds nothing of concern. Aside from his general exhaustion, Harry has no serious injuries. With a flick of Bardot’s wand, the cuts and scrapes peppering his face and hands mend themselves. She’s no Madame Pomfrey, Harry concedes, but she’s good. 

When she’s finished with Harry, she claps her hands and gestures for both boys to stand up. They both oblige, Malfoy warily, and stand in the middle of the room. 

“I’m just going to assess your magical signatures to make sure nothing is out of balance, and then we can file the discharge papers and send you both on your way. That sound alright?”

Harry nods and Malfoy mutters, “Yes, quite,” looking very eager indeed to be discharged. For once, Harry sympathizes. 

Healer Bardot nods and begins to chant, “ _Anima manifestat_ ” as she touches her wand to Harry’s chest for a moment, closes her eyes, and pulls it back, trailing a long, silky gold-shimmery substance at the tip along with it, as if she were pulling it out of Harry’s chest, straight from his core. It is not quite liquid, not quite gas. Not quite anything, really. Just—magic. 

Harry watches it for a moment, the way it moves and glows. He looks down at the end of the golden stream that is still connected to his body, flowing from his chest. It feels warm. It almost feels alive. 

His little trance is broken when Healer Bardot stops chanting and furrows her brows. Uh-oh. _That’s_ not a look Harry likes to see. She looks to Malfoy (who also seems a little mesmerized) and begins incanting again, this time only once. She guides his magic out from his body with her other hand, keeping her wand trained on Harry. Malfoy’s is an unassuming column of silver and blue. The way his magic moves, calm and slow and measured—it reminds Harry of the ocean. He’s surprised to find himself fighting the urge to reach out and run his hands through it, see if it will feel like water. 

Bardot, however, has a strange expression, her face a mixture of concerned and disbelieving, her eyes calculating, moving rapidly from silver-blue to gold. 

“Is there a problem?” Malfoy says slowly. 

Instead of answering, Healer Bardot drops both her hands, leaving their magic untethered. Harry doesn’t know what he expects. For it to retract back into them, maybe?

He certainly isn’t expecting the two streams of color to surge toward each other, entwining themselves with one another, Harry’s magic winding itself around Malfoy’s smooth as air, spiraling together, moving as one. He can almost _feel_ the glassy cool of Malfoy’s magic floating alongside his own. 

As soon as that thought enters Harry’s mind, he feels a physical presence drawing him towards the other boy, like a magnet pulling, pulling, and it aches in his chest, it’s just shy of painful—

He distantly hears Bardot whisper, “ _Finite Incantatem_ ”. Instantly, their magic dissolves, disperses into thin air, is if it had never been. Harry belatedly realizes that he is significantly closer to Malfoy than where they’d started, his pale face only about six inches away. They’re both panting. The sound of Healer Bardot’s wand clattering to the floor spurs him into action, and he steps away hastily, ignoring the uncomfortable heat in his face. He forces his breathing to even out and suppresses a shudder. Fucking ew. 

Healer Bardot’s face has lost its previous composure. Actually, she looks kind of terrified. Her expression, Harry thinks absently, could most accurately be described as _oh shit_. 

“Somebody call Albus Dumbledore.”

*

“It’s unbelievable! They’ve got no right to keep us from seeing Harry!”

Without looking up from her copy of the _Daily Prophet_ , Hermione counters, “Actually, Ronald, as his on-duty licensed medical practitioners, they do.” She’s sitting across the room from his bed in the visitor’s chair.

Tuning out Ron’s blathering, she quickly scans the pages of the newspaper’s latest edition for any mention of Death Eaters, the attack at the Ministry, or Voldemort’s return. It’s the best she can do given the fact that they haven’t had any outside contact from Dumbledore or the Order. Inwardly, she’s _fuming_ about their current situation, but at least one of them’s got to keep a level head about them, and it certainly isn’t going to be Ron.

Hermione sighs loudly as she realizes the most groundbreaking article she’s found yet is titled, “ _12 Best Cleaning Spells for the Modern Housewitch – Not Your Average_ Scourgify.” She’s come up fruitless. She doesn’t understand. The Minister had seen Voldemort with his own eyes! Why is he still so intent on keeping his rise to power from the public?

“Are you even listening to me?” Ron lifts his head from the pillow in a physical display of his indignation. It’s the most he can do in his current state, given the fact that he’s lying stomach-up with either hand submerged in a cauldron of Anti-Inflammatory Potion, with the Healer’s stern instructions to lay completely motionless still echoing in his ears. _“Stupid curse. Stupid brain,”_ he’d said.

“ _Yes_ , and in any case, you’re in no state to be going skipping off down the hall to see him, are you? He can take care of himself. And they can’t keep us in here forever.”

Ron looks back up at the ceiling and is silent for a few seconds. “What d’you reckon they’ve done with Malfoy?”

Hermione hadn’t thought of that. “Well, I….I imagine he’s…”

“If it were me, I’d’ve taken the slimy bastard into custody right along with his father, the minute those Ministry officials started showing up,” Ron interrupts. They’d all watched Voldemort disappear into thin air, but by the time word got out to the Auror Department, Lucius Malfoy and a handful of other Death Eaters had decidedly _not_ been so swift in their escape.

“Slimy bastard, huh?” Hermione says under her breath. 

“What’s that, ‘Mione?”

“Just talking to myself.” Only her and Neville had seen Malfoy tackle Harry to the ground when his back was turned. Fat lot of good it had done, since whatever curses the Death Eaters had intended to hit Harry with had just gotten them both instead, but still…

Ron continues, laughing to himself. “Wonder if they’d give ‘em adjacent cells. Can you imagine? Draco and Daddy toughing it out in Azkaban? No wands, soul-sucking dementors, and worst of all: _unwashed linens!_ ” He mimics the posh accented drawl of Lucius Malfoy, and Hermione laughs despite herself.

After that, much to Ron’s relief, the same Healer witch had come in and inspected the tendril-shaped burns along his arms and hands—though now they were no more than faint white scars—and declared him free to go.

“I expect they’ll be contacting your parents very shortly, if they haven’t already. It’s protocol for any underage wizard admitted,” she adds, when she notices Ron’s distinctly unenthused expression. Probably imagining Molly Weasley’s bone-crushing hugs and tendency towards cheek-pinching.

“She’s your mother, Ron. She’s got to be worried sick,” Hermione says gently.

Ron stands up, making the bedsprings creak. “Yeah, yeah, I know. C’mon, I’m sick of this room, this bed. Need to stretch my legs.” Hermione nods in understanding.

“Wanna go badger the administrators into letting us see Harry?” she asks conspiratorially.

“Sure, if you can even figure out which room he’s in. Or where the administrative offices are, for that matter,” he says, stretching.

“Obviously.”

*

After spending at least a half hour wandering about the place, Hermione was forced to conclude that she could not, in fact, locate the main office or Harry’s room. 

“Maybe we ought to…I dunno, call somebody?” Ron suggests as they find themselves meandering down yet another nondescript white corridor.

Hermione’s scanning the doors on either side, hoping to see a certain messy black-haired head peeking through one of the windows. No such luck.

She considers his suggestion. “Actually, at this point I think you may be right,” she says, though she is rather loathe to admit she may be out of her depth. After all, how difficult can it possibly be to find her way around a hospital? Would it kill them to post some signs around here?

They’re almost at the end of the corridor when Ron suddenly stops in his tracks.

“Wha—” Hermione begins to ask, but Ron silences her with a meaningful look by putting his finger over her lips. She resolutely ignores the heat creeping up her face and neck and pushes his hand away.

“Do you hear that?” he whispers, eyes gone quite wide.

Hermione is silent for a moment or two. Yes—she hears them now. Voices. Two of them, both women, she guesses. She nods at Ron.

There! A door at the end of the hallway has been left ajar, the two voices carrying over from inside the room. Ron seems to notice it too, because he starts creeping slowly towards the end of the corridor. “Is it just me, or does that sound like two people who don’t want to be eavesdropped on?”

Once they reach the door, Hermione chances a look through the small window and quickly ducks down out of view once she realizes who they’re listening to.

Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy stand on the other side of the door, and by the sound of it, their conversation isn’t exactly friendly.

She looks at Ron crouching beside her. His face has gone white.

“…was the Dark Lord’s will!” hisses Bellatrix.

“Damn the Dark Lord’s will, Bella, that is your _nephew_ lying in a hospital bed! That is my _SON_!” Narcissa sounds quite hysterical, Hermione thinks. She can’t recall a time she’s ever heard that woman so agitated.

“Speak carefully, sister,” Bellatrix says lowly, dangerously. “If Mulciber and Rookwood’s reports prove truthful, Draco may very well find himself in far more danger than facing a one-night stay in these cushy little wards.”

“Is that a threat?”

”It is a promise.”

Both women are silent for a long moment. Hermione and Ron exchange uneasy glances, ready to get up and leave, when Narcissa finally speaks again.

“You don’t think it’s true? Bella?” she whispers. She sounds so frightened for her son; Hermione almost feels a sharp pang of pity for her.

“I think,” Bellatrix says carefully, “that after Lucius’ capture, the Dark Lord will not be so inclined to offer mercy towards your family.”

Narcissa gasps.

“Tread lightly, Cissy.”

Beside her, Ron snorts. Hermione shoots an appalled look at him and follows it with a swift elbow to his ribs.

“Sorry,” Ron whispers, “It’s just. ‘ _Cissy_ ’?”

“Yes, well, evidently evil whores have still got pet names for their sisters,” Hermione can’t stop herself saying.

The sound of bedsprings creaking comes from inside the room. One of them must have sat down. “He is fifteen. He’s but a child.”

“He’s _taken the Mark_. He’s well past mature enough.”

 _Malfoy’s got the Dark Mark?_ Ron fixes her with a horrified look, and she knows they’re both thinking the same thing.

“Lucius should never have allowed him to come to the Ministry. I _told_ him, I said we never should have gotten Draco mixed up in all of this.” Narcissa says this all in a whisper, and Hermione has to strain her ears to catch it.

An inelegant snort. “You talk as if you would have had a choice otherwise. We’ve all got a role to play in this, Narcissa. The war is coming,” Bellatrix responds with far too much excitement coloring her voice.

Hermione mentally scoffs. _A role to play_ , indeed. She thinks if Harry were here, he would laugh.

The sound of clicking heels comes steadily towards the door, the squeak of a hand twisting the doorknob, and Hermione does the first thing she can think of. That is to say, she drags Ron by his collar and stumbles hurriedly through the door into the room directly across from them and slams it closed.

Breathing heavily, hands pressed to the glass, the two of them peek through the slim window to see Bellatrix and Narcissa exiting the room, thankfully still absorbed in conversation.

“That was close,” Ron breathes out. Hermione nods, too relieved to speak.

“May I help you?” a thoroughly annoyed male voice says from behind them, and they turn around sharply, Hermione with an undignified squeak.

In the center of the room, a sweaty, red-faced wizard lays with his legs strapped to the bed, fanning himself vigorously with a copy of the St. Mungo’s Newsletter. He lets off a high-pitched whistle as steam comes pouring from his angrily twisted mouth.

Hermione finds herself at a loss for words for an entirely different reason now, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“Merlin’s beard….,” says Ron, looking the man up and down with a disbelieving stare.

“Ronald!” She looks at him, consternation clear in her expression. “We are _so_ sorry, Mister, um—” wringing her hands, she frantically looks around the room for an indication of this man’s name. Ah! Yes! Patient chart, stuck to the wall. “Mr. Swindell, sir, we didn’t mean to intrude, you see we just—”

“Are _incredibly_ , horribly lost,” Ron interjects, seeing the increasingly irritated look on the man’s face. He makes for the phone on his bedside table, and with a flash of panic, Hermione sees him dial the number for Hospital Security.

“And we were just leaving! Okay, wow, you really are burning up... Sorry! Really, our sincerest apologies!” She says quickly, backing up, putting one hand on the doorknob.

“Have a splendid day!” Ron shouts brightly as they dash out of the room, hoping to high heaven security isn’t already on their way.

After the door is safely closed behind them, Ron lets out a little giggle. Surveying the hallway to make sure they’re alone, Hermione allows herself to slump against the wall, and hits Ron on the chest lightly.

Ron’s properly laughing now, barely able to breathe. “Wh—what?”

“ _Have a splendid day?_ ” she says incredulously, and she’s laughing too now, which of course has Ron practically _roaring_ , and then they’re both clutching their stomachs, tears coming fast down their cheeks. “Honestly should’ve just cast a _Colloportus_ if he was so worried about people barging in!” she adds.

What happened next really shouldn’t have surprised Hermione in the slightest.

“So.” Ron says, seeming to catch his breath. “Food court?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the glaaacial pace of my updates!! i am steadily planning and writing chapter three so please bear with me :)


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